The invention relates to a folder comprising a knife cylinder adapted to be driven at a rate independent of the speed of the web being supplied, a mating cylinder adapted to cooperate with said knife cylinder in cutting the web into sections at a cutting nip and which is provided with grippers for the leading edges of the sections, an a belt conveyor belt trained around a part of the circumference of said mating cylinder following said nip.
This design of folder is a described in the German patent No. 1,611,292. In folders of this type there is the advantage that the web may be cut to different sizes without having to have a transverse cutter, normally required in adjustable folders, with a following accelerating path. Owing to the difference in speed between the web and the cylinders having the cutting means it is necessary for the products to be severed at their trailing edges from the web even prior to the engagement by the grippers of the leading end of such web sections. The consequence of this is that the leading web end produced each time a cut is made, is not guided or held before it is engaged by the conveyor belt, that is to say at a point in the gap of increasing width the point of cutting and the start of the conveyor belt. There is thus the danger of such front run assuming a curled form, this being prone to lead to irregular folding in the course of later processing.